Hoppi

Hoppi is a tiny Finnish DOS game about ski jumping. Its period BBS blurb offered it as a first taste of a ski jump simulator implemented “perfectly according to the laws of physics” — unlike the arcade-style jumping games of its day it aimed for realism, with the sort of swagger typical of descriptions written by the authors themselves. Sadly, neither the author’s name nor an exact release year survives.

Ski jumping is a national passion in Finland and across the Nordic countries, so it is no surprise that the local home-computer scene of the 1990s took it on. Miniatures like this, passed around for free on BBS boards and floppy disks, make up a chapter of gaming history the big international retro sites still walk past.

You can find out how far you fly right away — Hoppi runs straight in your browser on OldGame.cz.